Parents of unvaccinated students are claiming that an emergency order banning their children from classrooms and other public places is invalid because the Rockland County executive was overstepping his authority.

The claims were made by several dozen parents whose children attend the Green Meadow Waldorf School, its sister school, the Otto Specht School for children with special needs, both in Chestnut Ridge, and the nearby Peace Through Play nursery school, in a lawsuit filed Wednesday in state Supreme Court in New City.

The lawsuit claims the plaintiffs have been irreparably harmed by an order that has not only barred their children from school but has also restricted their travel, activities and daily routines.

The parents, who are only identified by their initials, claim that Day misused an emergency declaration meant for quelling a disaster, rioting, catastrophe, or other singular event and not a health emergency. It additionally states that the individual orders comprising the declaration can only be issued for five days without being renewed.

"He’s now misusing that in the context of a public health issue when there’s a whole set of procedures to deal with a public health issue," the parents' lawyer, Michael Sussman, said referring to County Executive Ed Day.

Day declared the state of emergency March 26 after he said pockets of resistance were impeding efforts to stem an outbreak that had swelled to 161 total cases since it started in October when a traveler from Israel visited sites in the county.

The emergency declaration, which is in effect for 30 days, bans anyone who is under 18 and not vaccinated against the highly contagious virus from public places including schools, places of worship, shopping centers and restaurants.

Although those with medical exemptions are not included in the ban, there are no religious exemptions for anyone under 18 who is not vaccinated.

The legal action on behalf of the children — all of whom have religious exemptions for the vaccine — called the declaration "arbitrary and capricious" and challenged Day's authority to issue it.

Rockland County Attorney Thomas Humbach said Wednesday that the emergency declaration and its restrictions are intended "to try and put the brakes on the interminable measles outbreak afflicting this county and its residents. In this case, the good of the many must outweigh the preferences of the few, or the one.”

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But the parents claim the state of emergency extends to segments of the community that are outside the Orthodox and Hasidic areas around the Monsey-Spring Valley area where most of the infections have occurred.

Neither the plaintiffs' children nor their schools has had a reported case of the virus, according to the lawsuit.

"They went to places where the disease didn’t exist," Sussman said.

Green Meadow, a K-12 non-sectarian and non-denominational private school, is not involved in the legal action. The school is complying with all county and state directives according to school spokeswoman Vicki Larson. She added that there are no cases of measles in the school, nor have there been at any time during the outbreak.

"The school does not take a position on vaccination nor do we advise families on this personal decision," she said in a statement.

The parents involved in the lawsuit want the state of emergency "declared illegal" and tossed out "temporarily, preliminarily and permanently."

"It's an absolute abuse of authority," said the lawyer Sussman, who said Rockland had bungled its handling of the outbreak from the beginning.

"Day One when they knew there was an outbreak, under state law they should have quarantined the infected and those who had contact with them," Sussman said in an interview Wednesday. "Had they done that initially, they would have gotten a handle on it."

Sussman, who represents some of the same parents in an ongoing federal lawsuit filed against an earlier vaccination order, labeled Day's order an "overreach of authority."